Firstly, I'd just like to show everyone
reading this, one of the most thought out posts that gives
advice to starting players on DarkTide. I've found this post
on the ACVault
Board that pretty much sums it up for anyone that would
want to make Darktide their server. I don't think I could have
said it better myself.

Simple facts.

Don't come to DT if you hate loosing your stuff. Whining
about it just makes it worse.

Don't even come here if you are not prepared to be
PK'ed. If it happens. No big loss. Just burn the vitae and
move on.

If you do want to go into a starter town, make it to a
lifestone nearby that town first! Then once you are dead.
You can easily run into town do your business (quickly - so
have things ready to sell and know exactly what it is you
are looking for, you have just 5 minutes!) and get out. Make
a B-Line away from town and don't stop for anything, until
you are way out and clear of roads, houses, towns...just go.

Get two of everything at first. Forget the frikkin idea
of a death item right off the bat. It doesn't work half the
time. I've lost swords that were worth less than the armor I
was wearing! I lost a frikkin mana stone(lesser)which ain't
worth much before I lost ring worth twice it's value!

When it comes to stuff. Carry only what you really need.
Forget about stuff you'll never use! Sell it all once you
can get into town. Then turn your pyreals into notes! Don't
run around with lots of pyreals. You'll loose them.

When you are lower than 10th level and a red dot appears
on your radar, run as fast as you can the other way! Don't
bother with assessing them. Just run.

Find a nice far away place to hunt and level. There are
even a few dungeons scattered about where you can do this.
Dungeons are a good place to level and get good loot. But be
careful. When on DT you are a target no matter what your
level. You can visit the level 1 - 6 dungeons, and you won't
get PK'ed by a 10th level down there.

It doesn't matter what kind of character you create.
However, without some form of magic, you are pretty much
toast at the higher levels.

Forget about trying to get matching armor! On DT it
isn't a fashion show! It's survival of the fittest, fastest,
smartest and besides...wearing pretty armor will just
attract attention! Hell I still wear basic armor that I
buff, basic stuff! I don't give a rats ass about its color
or its looks. Besides all the costly stuff will most likely
get stripped from your poor dead carcases before its cold
anyways.

Don't play foolishly. If you are out in the middle of
boonies, don't take chances that'll get your butt killed!
Because guess what? If you die out there, you'll be sent
back to the lifestone. Which is most likely camped. You're
going to die again 7 out of 10 times. Why, because when you
are killed by a monster it's different then when you are
killed by a player. You're still PK. A TARGET! So play
smart! Don't get into things over your head. On top of that
unless you were smart enough to look at the map coordinates.
It'll take you a long time to recover your body. And while
you are looking, you are vunerable. So your best tactic is
to not die wayout there. Again, play smart!

Get use to being PK'ed - its part of the game.

Oh, just remember this. If you are PK'ed
enough when you first start out. Maybe you'll think twice
before doing the same to another just starting. Give a level 1
through - say 4 a break. They'll remember that you cut them
some slack in the future most likely. They may even come to
your aid once they have the ability.

I like to stress #9. I've had a couple of
friends that insist on creating the "pure melee" characters
without any type of magic so they can put all their experience
into melee skills. This just does not work. You will lack the
skills everyone else has when you hit level 20 and you will
regret wasting your precious ac time. Written for your
enjoyment are some other tips n tricks on PvP, levelling, and
equipment.

Vitae builds character"

PvP Tricks:

To some these may seem very cheap, but for
many regulars on Darktide, these are very viable options for
escaping and engaging in PvP combat. If you have a moral
against these tactics, feel free to email me explaining your
reasons. But for the reasons I give you these little tactics,
is that because everyone and their mother on Darktide uses
these tricks on a regular basis and anyone just starting to
get into PvP would have a huge disadvantage compared to the
more experienced players.

Portal Logging: Hit auto run and click the X in the top
right of the screen. Charge up jump to full and at the
height of your jump, click YES to log out. If done
correctly, you should continue to run strait while logging
out. Be wary that when you log, if a melee is hitting you,
he will do exceptional damage.

Wand Monkey: A person who uses the higher level wands
(Wand of black fire, White Virindi Wand, Impious Staff) in
player vs player combat. These spells all cast level VI
spell and because they make no spell "words" when used, they
give the element of surprise. A favourite technique with
wand monkeys is to cast their highest vulnerability on you
and "use the wand like a missile launcher from quake 2."

Something I found out on my own. Being a melee with lots
of strength and spending lots of time killing lugians, I
always find those extremely heavy weapons lying around. If I
find a victim I want to punish, I take several lugian
weapons, give them to the intended target, and watch as his
run skill drops to a crawl.

Travelling/Newbie Tips:

If you are a low level exploring, make sure to avoid the
many phyntos wasps and armordillos, they aren't that tough,
but if you don't have good armor they will quickly drill you
into the dirt.

At the end of this page I have posted what I believe to
be the best aid for a starting or adventuring character. It
contains all the coordinates for town meeting halls, and all
the "Tou-Tou to Arwic" type portal coords. I will also
include some coordinates for some places to hunt in that
I've found and used while leveling.

Always make sure every part of your body is covered with
a piece of armor before you start exploring. For a mage,
make sure you have a robe that covers head and the entire
body so that monsters won't get a lucky critical hit in.

To get the most yield collection motes, crystals, and
shards, fight things your level. Quite often a low level
will get a mote every 30-40 mud golem, while if a level 30
comes into a low level dungeon and clears the place, it will
take him 100-150 golems for just one mote.

Weapons/Equipment:

Dagger - Use the dagger of gertarh (8-9 base 20 speed),
the atlan dagger (2-8 base good spells, can be made to do
elemental damage), or Tikola's dagger (3-10 base, bd III, hs
III)

Sword - Use the atlan dagger or one of the commonly
found high level tachis. I've found the tachi to have the
best speed/damage ratio. For a good tachi easily found, look
for the "mucker mosswart" in green mire grave and
Underground City. The overlord sword and sword of lost light
can also pack a nice punch.

Spear - For very low levels, I suggest going for Tibri's
fire spear. It looks amazing and can be found on the ground
of a cave at 24.2N, 43.2E. For higher levels, the atlan
weapon is superb and the green mire yari (6-11 base, bd II)
is very good

Mace/Axe - The only really good weapons for these I've
found is the atlan weapons. They do very nice damage. What
is fun about being good at these is that you can use the
lugian weapons that are extremely heavy and slow but do a
lot of damage.

Staff - Not sure about this one, I've seen people doing
a lot of damage with a fire staff that is rumoured to come
from a dungeon right beside Arwic, but your best bet is
saving the motes for that atlan weapon.

Unarmed - Any good 2-5 base damage elemental or atlan
weapon will work here. People usually try to carry every
type of element to get the maximum damage for what they
fight.

Bow - I usually carry at least a 60+% damage mod bow
with a normal 33% damage mod yumi for backup. For pking, try
to get a bow or gloves that cast a high level co-ordination
spell to do extra damage.

Crossbow - Not many people use crossbows currently for
PvP, so there is a low of selection of high mod x-bows out
there. Just try asking around and you can easily find one
over 100 damage mod.

Throwing - This is one I haven't seen once for pking,
but would like to. Everywhere you go you see acid throwing
daggers, frost throwing clubs, and lightning darts just
lying around. If someone would make a throwing guy that can
actually run with the best of us, I'd love to pk with him.

Armor - Armor pretty much depends on your strength and
wealth. If you have both, I suggest going strait to
platemail. It may be heavy, but it's probably the best
protection your going to get at the lower-mid levels. Once
you get a bit higher you could try a mattekar coat,
superior/otholi helm, and some high al leggings. If you have
a lot of mana to spare and don't mind buffing every 5-10
minutes, you might want to just wear a faran robe with hood
and buff that with impen IV+.

For those newbies with a little more experience or some
good equipment, consider find a good auroch cow (level 10)
spawn right off the bat. Just north of yaraq is a regular 6
cow spawn that people love to hang out and bbq. For those of
you melee's who can't directly take the hits, get a mage to
blast once, while the cow chases it's aggressor, the melee
can slash it's ankles till it falls.

At around level 10, you might consider looking for a
better place then the cows to level. You could try the
beaches surrounding yaraq which contain mud golems, water
golems, ivory gromnies, and lower level reed sharks. Another
good place fairly close by is the mysterious caves outside
of Al'Jalima. It contains 4 limestone golem, 3 mud golem,
and 1 sandstone golem spawns. By getting used to the brute
force these things can do compared to drudges and cows, the
new player can begin to tell when he/she can handle the
higher level golems.

At around level 14, you should consider moving to the
sand stone golem caves. There are two fairy close together
just outside of Lin. Although the rocky crypt and golem
burial ground have good spawns, they are regularly visited
by the pks that enjoy killing newbies.

At level 18, if you are melee, I suggest heading over to
Qualaba'r to participate in the regular lugian slaughtering
that goes on all around, including two outposts, and two
good dungeons (Forking Trails and Lugian Mines.) For mages
and archers, I suggest a good spot in the dires such as fort
teth where you can safely plunk away at the high level
drudges without much risk of getting in trouble.

*NOTE, if you have a high level buffing you, and
debuffing the npcs, you might want to considering going to
the higher golems or lugians right away. I buffed a level 1
dagger character with gertarh's dagger (8-9 base) and lured
a Lithos lugian (level 33) around while the level 1 whacked
it. Doing this a couple of times, my newb friend was already
level 4 and quickly increasing his skills.

For archers who have friends in high places, I suggest
going to the many otholi spawns. The black death catacombs
is fairly good, and starting at level 12, I have seen
archers atop a rock near Neydissa (sp?) Castle plunking away
at debuffed otholi workers.